Tech
(Boston)--Researchers have published a new study that suggests a signaling pathway called ROBO2 is a therapeutic target for kidney diseases, specifically kidney podocyte injury and glomerular diseases.
Kidney podocytes are special octopus-like cells that are critical in maintaining the kidney glomerular filtering system and normal kidney function. This is the first time the ROBO2 pathway has been linked to glomerular diseases such as membranous nephropathy (affecting the filters) and focal segmental glomerulosclerosis (scarring in the kidney).
New research from North Carolina State University finds that radiation detectors making use of single-crystal gallium oxide allow for monitoring X-ray radiation in near-real time.
Researchers at the University of Southampton have mapped the global locations of major renewable energy sites, providing a valuable resource to help assess their potential environmental impact.
Their study, published in the Nature journal Scientific Data, shows where solar and wind farms are based around the world - demonstrating both their infrastructure density in different regions and approximate power output. It is the first ever global, open-access dataset of wind and solar power generating sites.
HOUSTON - (May 4, 2020) - Rice University researchers have created an efficient, low-cost device that splits water to produce hydrogen fuel.
The platform developed by the Brown School of Engineering lab of Rice materials scientist Jun Lou integrates catalytic electrodes and perovskite solar cells that, when triggered by sunlight, produce electricity. The current flows to the catalysts that turn water into hydrogen and oxygen, with a sunlight-to-hydrogen efficiency as high as 6.7%.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Since Robert Hooke's first description of a cell in Micrographia 350 years ago, microscopy has played an important role in understanding the rules of life.
However, the smallest resolvable feature, the resolution, is restricted by the wave nature of light. This century-old barrier has restricted understanding of cellular functions, interactions and dynamics, particularly at the sub-micron to nanometer scale.
In many parts of the U.S., robots have been replacing workers over the last few decades. But to what extent, really? Some technologists have forecast that automation will lead to a future without work, while other observers have been more skeptical about such scenarios.
A typical nuclear reactor uses only a small fraction of its fuel rod to produce power before the energy-generating reaction naturally terminates. What is left behind is an assortment of radioactive elements, including unused fuel, that are disposed of as nuclear waste in the United States. Although certain elements recycled from waste can be used for powering newer generations of nuclear reactors, extracting leftover fuel in a way that prevents possible misuse is an ongoing challenge.
AMES, Iowa - Perovskites with their crystal structures and promising electro-optical properties could be the active ingredient that makes the next generation of low-cost, efficient, lightweight and flexible solar cells.
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- In northern Chile's Atacama Desert, one of the driest places on Earth, microorganisms are able to eke out an existence by extracting water from the rocks they colonize.
An Army-funded project by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, Johns Hopkins University and University of California, Riverside gained an in-depth understanding of the mechanisms by which some cyanobacteria, an ancient group of photosynthetic microbes, survive in harsh environments.
Through a meta-analysis of biotrophs, hemibiotrophs, and necrotophs, four scientists set out to find if the latent period of leaf fungal pathogens reflects their trophic types. The answer? Yes, there is a strong relationship between the trophic type and the latent period, an important functional trait of pathogenic fungi.
Spinels are oxides with chemical formulas of the type AB2O4, where A is a divalent metal cation (positive ion), B is a trivalent metal cation, and O is oxygen.
Plastic pollution is an increasingly present threat to marine life and one which can potentially impact your dinner table.
Oysters, and other economically valuable shellfish, filter their food from the water where they may also inadvertently capture tiny microplastics. The ingestion and accumulation of these microplastics can have detrimental effects on their health and may be passed to other animals, including humans, through the food chain.
The study "The environmental costs of water transfers", published in Nature Sustaintability, studies the proposals for water roads to face the water crisis that affects Chile. Researchers from Universidad de Concepcion, Universidad de Chile, Universidad del Desarrollo, and Universidad del Biobío participated, with an interdisciplinary perspective.
LANCASTER, England -- Researchers working on molecular-level responses in crops have taken a step closer to their goal of producing heat-tolerant wheat.
Smart thermostats tell air conditioners to switch on when the sun is bearing down in the summer and when to shut down to conserve energy. Similarly, plants have Rubisco activase, or Rca for short, that tells the plant's energy-producing enzyme (Rubisco) to kick on when the sun is shining and signals it to stop when the leaf is deprived of light to conserve energy.
While public discussion during and after the 2016 presidential campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton largely focused on emails and email servers, a team of political science scholars zeroed in on email communications distributed by the campaigns and found that email is still an important campaign tool despite its mundane nature.